


The Marriage of Song and Lyre

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth, Story: The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-20 00:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11325261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: A re-telling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in a "Three Garridebs" AU. Angst with a happy ending.





	1. Samba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the LJ fffc com prompt (r17.11): Salvation.
> 
> Title is from _Sonnets to Orpheus_ by Rainer Maria Rilke 
> 
> _It was as though a girl came forth_  
>  _from the marriage of song and lyre,_  
>  _shining like springtime._  
>  _She became inseparable from my own hearing._  
> 
> Part One, II, translation by A. Barrows and J. Macy (2005).

I cease my plucking of the violin and await your judgment.

“You picked up that tune at the docks today,” you say, leaning to one side, with shoulder and cheek pressed against the tall, street-facing window.

Your attention is elsewhere. Nevertheless, I hide my pride at your conclusion with a pantomime: a furrowed brow, feigned concentration, a bit of discordant strumming.

“You picked it up along with the smoked delicacies that we had at dinner and the coffee that I am eagerly anticipating at breakfast. And the fruit, unusual, but delicious, once we discovered how to carve into it.”

When you wrench your gaze from the pane, I give a simple nod and raise an eyebrow.

“I like it,” you reply to the unspoken question.

“There was also a dance,” I say. “Neither Captain Basil nor I have the bloodline to do it justice.”

I stand and perform a shamefully ungraceful imitation of the Brazilian sailors, half-spasm, half-shuffle.

You laugh and say, “Go back to the song before I force a brandy down your gullet.”

I do.

You go back to your observation.

“What of dear Baker Street, my good man, has you so fixed this evening?”

“You mean you can’t deduce it?”

“Bricks and clay,” I reply in mock protest. “Please.”

“No bricks, no clay, but rather feathers. There was a single raven perched on the sign next-door. Now there are three, and I’m certain that that they are listening to your playing, Holmes.”

“A conspiracy of ravens!” I cry. “Alert the Yard!”

You grin, but do not turn your head.

“Or if you’d prefer, Watson, an unkindness of ravens, but that would be, well, a bit hostile, wouldn’t it? Now are you quite certain that they are ravens?”

“Birds. Big. Black.”

“Might be crows. A murder of crows at our window!”

“It is a congress of crows, Holmes.”

“If they are assembling at our window, Watson, they are most certainly a murder. We are not in the business of legislation or negotiation. Or treaties.”

You laugh. “Not directly at least.”

I pluck joyfully at the strings.

“You are like Saint Francis,” you say.

“Orpheus,” I correct. “Francis never played a lyre and I am no saint.”

I move towards the window, and when the song ends, I am standing behind you at the glass, peering over your shoulder.

Is it a risk, this?

Were any passersby in the street to look up, might they see a pair of silhouetted figures standing far too close to one another to be confirmed bachelors amicably sharing chaste quarters?

Perhaps.

But then you look back over your shoulder and your eyes alight for the briefest moment on my lips before returning to the crows.

A risk, yes, but well worth it.

This mute, ephemeral understanding— _oh, what a hatefully inadequate word!_ —between us has existed for years, but of late, it has taken on a more tangible quality.

Nearness, such as this very tableau. Laughter. Glances. Touches, too, not ones that linger, no, nothing intimate by any of society’s tedious standards, but nevertheless.

Nevertheless.

Everything feels heavier, pithier, more substantive.

Warmer.

More frequent, too.

My imagination? Perhaps. Difficult to say with flood-stained, muddled memories, attic-stored reference books missing some critical pages, but I am not fabricating my own urgency. The impulse to do something, to say something, to cross a line that I have not crossed, to declare myself, to force you to declare yourself—no, the last I would never do—strikes me more often and with more intensity with each passing day, problem, week, puzzle, season, however time is measured in our world.

But who am I fooling?

Certainly not that trio of dark-winged creatures who do, I’ll admit, appear to be observing us as keenly as we are observing them.

Six dark side-set eyes fix on my two grey front-set ones, and shame fills me once more.

Before today’s foray to the docks, I’d spent three days in bed, wallowing in stony, self-indulgent— _is there any other kind?_ —melancholy.

You, my dearest of men, should be the object of a passion far more steadfast and true than my crippled— _brilliant, yes, but brittle, so very brittle_ —soul can furnish.

You deserve more.

But forget ‘deserve,’— _it’s a wretched word, anyway_ —why attempt to fix what is most emphatically not broken?

You and I, we are married, are we not? We share a life, a home, quiet moments, domestic concerns, professional camaraderie.

It is enough.

Enough!

“Do you think that they are harbingers, Holmes? Portents of something?” you ask quietly and with such earnestness that I almost, _almost_ , shudder with you.

“No,” I declare.

And at that, I spring from your side, put instrument to chin and bow to strings, and launch into a lyrical, but decidedly English melody.

“There they go,” you say, then fail to stifle a yawn. “And so do I. I’ve had a long day so I shall retire early unless you have need of me? No? Good. I’m so glad to see you about today. Perhaps tomorrow will bring an interesting case.”

I nod and provide appropriate accompaniment to your departure. Need I say it? _Lieder_ , of course. It is still one of your favourites.

You turn back at the bottom of the stairs, gift me, my song, and lyre with a good-night smile, then begin your ascent with slow, heavy footfalls.

Footfalls which, as predicted, are much quicker and lighter in their morning descent, which occurs as soon as the aroma of the coffee wafts under the door of the upstairs bedroom.

“Hallo, hallo!” you cry.

You’ve slept later than is your custom, but it is all for the better for I am now ready for you and the day, with a foolscap document in hand and the promise of at least an entertaining tale, and perhaps even a noteworthy case, ahead.

“There is a chance for you to make some money, friend Watson,” I say. “Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?”


	2. Opera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Breath, you invisible poem!_  
>  _Pure, continuous exchange_  
>  _with all that is, flow and counterflow_  
>  _where rhythmically I come to be._  
>  Rainer Maria Rilke, _Sonnets to Orpheus_ , Part Two, I

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”

“It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”

My pocket-knife rips your trousers.

“Liar,” I hiss. “There’s too much blood.”

In my arms, you slip from chair to floor. I kneel beside you and divest myself of jacket and shirt, bundle the former and tear a long, thin strip from the latter.

“Holmes, I should have told you. As frightened, as stupid as I was, I should have told you how much I—Christ, why did I wait?”

“Stop it,” I order and press my bundled jacket to your wound.

Behind us, Evans moans.

I look over my shoulder and roar, “Wait your turn, reptile! Your head will be crushed beneath my heel like the miserable asp that you are!”

“Don’t kill him, Holmes,” you say as more colour drains from your face. “Then there will be three of us in Hell.”

“You’re not going yet, angel,” I reply.

Your lips press together in what under normal circumstances would certainly be the precursor to a smile, but then your body trembles and your voice cracks when you say, “Holmes, I need to tell you—”

“You need to stop talking utter rot and tell me something useful, Doctor! How do I save you?”

I fix the bundled jacket, which is turning dark red far too fast, around your leg with the strip of shirt.

“Tighter,” you cough.

I pull the makeshift bandage tighter.

“Hermes,” you cough.

Fear gives way to anger.

“Bloody hell, Watson! Greek gods? Now?”

Your teeth chatter as you try to shake your head. “One of the bohemian bachelors who lives here. I recognised him. Army surgeon in India. Saw him playing chess upstairs—“

I fly.

* * *

There are far too many medical drones in this skep of a room. Sir Leslie Oakshott is here, of course. Moore Agar, too. Each brought a colleague. The four men huddle together, whispering, buzzing, dancing their discoveries, then they separate and recombine in twos, then ones and threes.

The only one not being collegial is Hermes. He’s leaning against the wall, gulping tonic water, regarding the scene with undisguised resentment, the kind that the occupied always entertain towards their invaders.

Understandable, of course, for it is his hive.

The only doctor that interests me for the moment, however, is you, the one lying abed, the one that is far too grey.

I wipe the fogged mirror with the sleeve of a shirt that is not my own and feel again for your fluttering pulse.

You are far too still, far too silent.

My Watson is a man of action and a man of noise—even in sleep. When nodding in your armchair before the fire at Baker Street, it is your custom to snort and sniff and sigh. You are forever shifting, settling and resettling yourself in your seat. Your knees crack. Your belly gurgles. On trains. In hansom cabs. Inopportunely, on the most delicate and clandestine of errands. On the rare instance when a case forces us to share a room in a country inn, your position in slumber most closely resembles that of a worm manically writhing to free itself from the hook and the sounds that your body makes are those of the fish about to snap at the bait!

To see you in your current state of quiet, motionless repose, chills me as even the blood— _and there was far too much blood_ —did not.

You are not sleeping, but you are not dead.

You are somewhere in-between sleep and death.

_But where?_

I am somewhere in-between rage and madness.

One by one, the bees mumble their recommended courses of treatment.

I nod without listening.

Ours was not the only tragedy of the day. In due course, the police arrived. Evans was collected as was the counterfeit printing press hidden below Garrideb’s residence. I am not convinced that Evans will not, one day, return to the shadows from whence he emerged. The thought does not worry me.

I will find him.

And tonight, Mister Nathan Garrideb, like you, Watson, is also under doctor’s care—well, nurse’s care, but I did ask the doctors to look in on him on their way out. Perhaps something can be done for him, but I am doubtful. Upon returning from Birmingham and discovering his dream of a large inheritance dissipated, our modern Hans Sloane suffered a severe shock.

But at least he is suffering in his own bed.

“Can Doctor Watson be moved to Baker Street?” I ask.

“Later tonight, when the streets are at their quietest,” Hermes replies. “You’ll need the smoothest wagon you can find.”

I briefly leave your side to task a group of Baker Street Irregulars with scouting for appropriate transport. When I return, Hermes drains his glass.

“I have a gasogene,” I say by way of invitation, “if you require further sobering.” The scent of him has not escaped me. He smells of spirits, and not the kind that purportedly hold hands with fairies and skip through the meadows.

“It is not me who'll need to keep his head,” he grumbles, but he leads me to a garden workshop of sorts where we find a wooden palette suitable for ferrying you from bed to wagon and wagon to Baker Street.

Finally, you are ensconced in my bed, still alive— _yes, I’ve checked thrice_ —but still pale and silent.

I wash and change clothes and join Hermes by the fire in the sitting room.

He sits in my chair.

I stand behind yours.

“What do I need to do?” I ask. “To save him. To bring him back.” For from the very moment that I laid eyes on this man, I have known that he knows the answer to that question, the only question that matters.

I refill his glass and wait as he gulps.

“You need to travel to the Underworld and bargain with Death,” he says.

I laugh, high-pitched, hysterical.

“Oh, is that all?”


	3. Bossa Nova

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holmes's song is Rainer Maria Rilke's _Sonnets to Orpheus_ , Part I, VIII (translation A. Wroe, 2011).

Death is my trade.

The corpse-less puzzle is rare, the bloodless crime even more so. I’m well known for my professional as well as academic pursuits among the residents of Barts morgue. I’ve sent men to their deaths, seen men meet their deaths, and I have a strong desire to send one more, see one more, before my own thread is snipped. I have cheated death. I have worn death’s disguise. And so, to the challenge of rescuing my beloved Watson by traveling to the Underworld and bargaining with Death, I say,

“Oh, is that all?”

Whether this Hermes is a god or a man or a figment of my sorrow-stricken mind, he is decidedly not a mortal mind-reader for he snorts with derision and calls me a fool.

Then he leans forward until his hands touch the floor. His body follows. He sits cross-legged on the rug and gestures for me to join him.

“Don’t forget your lyre, citharode.”

His words are the first clue as to the nature of what’s to follow, and, as is with some cases, and not necessarily the simple ones, I require only one.

I settle myself opposite him with violin and bow resting across my lap.

“We’re not actually going anywhere, you know?” he says.

I know.

In addition to a death-monger, I am an addict and an invert, so no one need ever inform me of what I first intuited upon departing the womb:

the Kingdom of Hell is within.

* * *

The Kingdom of Hell may be within, but the entrance to the Underworld is that of an underground railway station.

A curtain of black fog all but obscures the stone archway of the tunnel. Steep steps lead down, out of sight.

Hermes offers me a vial.

“A sacrifice?” I say

“Unless you’ve a virgin handy,” he replies with a snicker.

I crack the vial against a sharp stone edge and the air fills with a heady mix of lavender and bergamot, which fades to a sandalwood musk. The aroma is unmistakable, Hammam Bouquet, a specialty of Watson’s second-favourite Turkish bath on Jermyn Street.

The fog melts.

“This is where I leave you,” says Hermes. He points to the steps.

I nod, tuck violin and bow under my wing, and descend.

Down, down, down.

It dark, cool, and damp.

Like a tomb, like a crypt, like a grave.

I move slowly, step by step by step, as there is no railing, just the brick-lined walls of the narrow passageway.

The scent of perfume is replaced by that of earth. Bricks become wattle and daub, but the wattle is not woven lattice.

It is bones, human bones.

Skeletons are folded and stacked as neatly as laundered linens and pressed into the daub, on whose composition I dare not speculate.

I keep moving.

Down, down, down.

I know not how long I’ve been traveling—hours, days—when a pang of hunger stabs me.

A row of a dozen skulls is at my left hand—I have taken to counting the bones—but one of the twelve is not a skull. It is a yellow apple.

I pluck it from the wall and bite.

Crisp. Sweet. Fresh.

I wait, but the only magic I note is the cessation of my belly’s gurgling, so I keep going.

Finally, the steps level off.

There is a gate.

It is a proper gate, for atop it is a proper gatekeeper: a three-headed raven.

Three dark heads twist so that three dark eyes may eye me with no little contempt. Three dagger-beaks squawk their threat.

“How ‘bout a song?” I reply.

I leave my bow under my arm and begin to pluck at the strings of the violin. Plucking turns to strumming, which turns back to plucking.

It is the jaunty tune of two days earlier, that of the Brazilian sailors. The quick, churning rhythm catches the gatekeeper’s attention, silences the alarm, but, bar by bar, I slow and soften the song until it is, without a doubt, a love song.

Three lashed eyes blink slowly. Three feathered heads tilt slowly.

Then one enormous plumed body begins to sway.

Sway, sway, sway.

I mirror the bird’s moments, using every step to inch closer to the gate, and sing,

_Only to him who dares take up the lyre_

_Even in the realms of the shades_

_shall it be granted in awe to inspire_

_to unendingly praise._

_Only one who has dwelt with the dead_

_and tasted the poppy flower_

_can be sure that the lightest, most delicate tone_

_will not slip from his power._

These lyrics, I confess, are not especially romantic, but my voice drips like a summer-ripen fruit with young, sweet love.

I switch from English to a far more enchanting tongue and let my heart compose.

It is the song of a boy for a beautiful girl he has just seen at the market. It is the song of a boy for a beautiful girl he has just seen skipping along the shore. It is the song of a boy for a beautiful girl he has just seen picking flowers in a meadow.

It is the song of a boy who has just seen a beautiful boy after discovering a reagent that is precipitated by haemoglobin and nothing else.

Music swells. Lovers kiss.

A bird sways. A gate swings.

And just like that, I pass right through and plunge into a fog as thick as the top of the staircase.

I keep playing a quiet coda of my song until a voice booms,

“Mister Sherlock Holmes, what do you want?”

“My Watson.”

“You’ve sent many here.”

“I’ll send even more. Just give me my Watson.”

“You’ve taken my name in vain. Twice.”

“Never again. Just give him to me.”

“No mortal lives forever.”

“When he dies, so shall I. I cannot live without him.”

“Very well. Return, he’ll follow, but on two conditions: you must not stop playing and you must not look back.”

“Oh, is that all?”


	4. Jazz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.  
> Climb praising as you return to connection.  
> Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,  
> be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
> 
> Be. And, at the same time, know what it is _not_ to be.  
>  That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate   
> in resonance with your world. Use it for once.  
> Rainer Maria Rilke's _Sonnet to Orpheus_ , Part II, XIII (translation A. Barrows & J. Macy, 2005).

Going up is always easier on the knees than going down. I cannot say whether, in your current form, your left knee still troubles you, but, among other things, the thought that your ascent will be easier than your descent calms me.

I am not worried. Not in the least.

You are with me.

Death has given me a set of rules, which I will follow. Death has given me a task, which I will undertake and complete.

Death is not a liar. Or a cheat.

That’d be me.

Death says you will follow.

You will follow.

And not just because Death says so, but because that has ever been our way.

I lead. You follow.

Into danger. Into harm’s way. Into mysteries and darkness and dramas, three-acts and then some.

I lead. You follow. And now, I will lead you home.

I play.

I weave the sailors’ jig and the love song together into something new, something full of joy and pluck and cheek.

Step, step, step.

It is the song of an evening ramble, two men, in the prime of their lives, crisscrossing their teeming metropolis while the sun dips below the horizon. They are happy to be together, happy to be exploring their grand city. Their feet are quick and their minds curious. They dart, they saunter, they point to this and that, they joke, they laugh. They read the headlines. They read the faces.

They have no destination and no purpose, nevertheless, they are in motion, just like their surroundings are in motion, the crowds, the carriages, all swirling together.

They are dancing while the earth spins.

Step, step, step.

They are men of business, and each strides with the boldness, the confidence of having an extra coin in his pocket. A spot of good luck, a return on investment, a bit hard work rightfully compensated, no matter the origin, the result is an optimism, a pair of smiles.

They are happy. They are together. The world is theirs for the taking.

Step, step, step.

You are behind me.

There is no reason to look back.

And with the melody that pours forth from my instrument also vibrating through the hollow vessel of body, moving muscle and blood and bone, there is no reason to stop playing.

Step, step, step.

Skulls become bricks. Shadows lighten. Air warms.

I slow not my song nor my steps.

I am a sleuth-hound on the scent. I breathe in the sandalwood and amber still lingering in the tendrils of black fog.

And pass through darkness into light.

Triumphant, I cry,

“I am the great Sherlock Holmes!”

“Holmes.”

I am a many-petalled flower tethered to a pond’s edge, bent over its looking-glass surface.

“Has it been enough?” I sigh.

“Enough.”

Not Watson, Mrs. Hudson.

“Mister Holmes, they’re here, the men.”

Now I am the cursed nymph.

“Men?”

She smiles a weary, weary smile that chills me, and her next words freeze my heart, my fingers.

“The men to take Doctor Watson.”


	5. Violin Solo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this uncontainable night,  
> be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,  
> the meaning discovered there.  
> Rainer Maria Rilke, _Sonnets to Orpheus_ , Part II, XXIX (translation A. Barrows & J. Macy, 2005).

Her smile is weary, wearier than I remember. Her face is lined, more lined than I remember. She is thin, thinner than I remember.

She’s frail.

And she’s been crying. A lot.

“You know, Mister Holmes, you know. Brighton. He’ll get the best care. Why every doctor in London is there on holiday in August! Sea air. Healing waters. Good, good nurses. Strong, capable, solid women…”

Her voice falters. She wrings her hands, a gesture I’ve not seen her make in all my years of residence at this address.

My view of her is awkward and I realise that I am looking up from the rug.

“August?” I murmur. “But Watson was shot in June.”

I turn my head.

The morning sun is bright and hot on the window pane. Clouds of dust billow up from the street.

I turn my head in the other direction and through the open bedroom door—my open bedroom door—I see him.

“Watson!” I cry and fly to his side, though the rising pains me more than it should and the flight is that of a clumsy chicken, not a graceful dove.

He’s gaunt. He’s pale.

He’s sitting up in bed in blue-striped pyjamas that are far too large for him.

But he’s alive.

At least, his eyes are open.

“Watson, Watson!”

His stare is blank, his body as stiff, as motionless as, well, a corpse.

I rush ‘round the bed, overturning a table. Bowl and spoon clatter to the floor. My bare foot slips and I crash to wooden floorboards, flailing. The front and sleeves of my dressing gown are smeared with gruel, grey-brown and lumpy.

The pathetic comedy of the scene does not escape me, but when I flail my arms again, my hand brushes my own face, and comedy becomes horror.

I shriek.

Hair!

I pat my chin along my jawline.

A beard, one, no, perhaps, two months of growth.

“Mister Holmes!”

I look up at her from the floor once more, but this time her lined, weary, thin face is upside down.

“Please. We discussed this, Mister Holmes. Many times. It’s the home where Mister Garrideb is receiving care. It comes very highly recommended. Your brother—“

My brother!

“—has been most helpful and generous and sympathetic in the matter. Doctor Watson will be better cared for in Brighton.”

“Brighton? No! Watson should be here, with us.”

“Mister Holmes!” Her voice grows shriller with every syllable. “I am not a young woman, and I am not a nurse by profession or vocation! I love Doctor Watson, and I have cared for him as much as I’m able, but,” and here, she breaks into a barking cough which only lessens enough for her to gurgle, “I have come to the cold, unkind, cowardly conclusion that I am in grave danger of expiring myself if I continue this way. And I am not a heroine in a novel!” She closes her eyes. “May God forgive me for it.”

Tears wet my face.

Hers? Mine?

“But I am here,” I protest feebly. “I help.”

Her gurgling becomes mirthless laughter, she looks away, and her words pierce my heart.

“You have not been here for some time, Mister Holmes. And, forgive me, but you cannot even help yourself.”

She looks down again, and we stare at each other while I bleed, silently, invisibly, from many pricking wounds.

“What have I been doing?” I ask her, and myself.

She produces a handkerchief from the folds of her dress and wipes her face. Then she smiles, a slightly less weary smile.

“Your violin, it’s a treat for the gods, Mister Holmes. And I cannot blame you for, well, going into yourself. It is terrible to see a man so full of life as Doctor Watson reduced to such a state. No, I don’t blame you. In fact, I envy you. Were that I could survive on an apple every fortnight and play music as beautiful as yours. They’re here,” she takes a deep breath and irons her face to smoothness. ”And if you don’t wish to be admitted as a patient yourself, I suggest that you retire to your room upstairs until he’s gone.”

* * *

In the mirror, I see the madman.

And as I hear the front door shut and the wagon depart, the two blades of the scissors in my hand close upon a tuft of dark, wiry hair.

I play one song before departing.

It is a song full of sorrow. It is a song of regret, of the burden of everything left undone and unsaid. It is a song of disappointment and of grief.

It is a solo that longs to be a duet.

Tears roll down my cheeks and wet the wood, but I do not stop playing until my heart is as wrung as my landlady’s hands.

And when the final note has ceased to vibrate, I place bow and instrument snug in their velvet-lined case and snap the case closed.

I wipe my face and descend the stairs slowly.

My trunk is waiting at the door.

So is my landlady.

“Perhaps I spoke to harshly, Mister Holmes,” she says quickly.

I cover her wringing hands with my own.

“I am sorry for all that failed to do,” I say, not taking my eyes from hers. “You may rest now.”

“Oh, I don’t even know how,” she says with false cheerfulness. Then her voice falls to a confessional tone. “I don’t just envy your madness, Mister Holmes. Now even when I was young did I love as you love him.”

“And I am far too old not to love him as you do, but I am going to learn, the love of clean linen and empty chamber pots.”

“Don’t forget the songs. He needs them, too.”

I pick up my violin case.

She smiles.

I kiss her good-bye.

And my chief thought on the journey to Brighton is a lament that a train whistle cannot be reproduced on a stringed instrument.


	6. Samba (Revisted)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quiet friend who has come so far,  
> feel how your breathing makes more space around you.  
> Rainer Maria Rilke, _Sonnet to Orpheus_ , Part II, XXIX. (translation A. Barrows & J. Macy, 2005)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's taken this journey with me.

“…and so you see, Watson, it’s a small but serviceable cottage. Interior’s quite open, no stairs, which allows for the freedom of movement that we required. It is not unlike one I saw in Sussex once and to which imagined that I—or rather we—might retire and spend our later years. That one had bees, which this one lacks, but there is a well-paved spot that looks onto a lovely garden and this,” I say rolling the wheeled chair out the rear door, “a magnificent sea view.”

Birds caw. Waves roll.

The scene befits a postcard: a shoreline of sand and rock extending just beyond an expanse of thick, thorny scrubland.

“Two attendants from the home will come on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The doctor will be by once a week, more often, if required. This chair, of my own engineering and crafting, of course, does almost as well on the sand as it does on _terra firma_. I’ve got our field glasses that we may continue our birding. Yes, I think we shall do very nicely here, don’t you?”

I sit beside you and take your hand, then drop it abruptly and stand.

“Oh, one more thing,” I say and hurry inside to fetch my violin case.

I brush the dust off it and say,

“How about a shanty? Yes? Seems apt, I agree.”

I break into a spirited rendition of ‘Cheerly Man,’ but the notes do not want to stay jesting and lively, they soon soften into a sighing love song. My fingers, my bow, and my instrument seem to remember what my mind has swept from its attic.

I see three dots against a white cloud in the distance.

They grow larger.

Birds.

I remember a gate and a gatekeeper.

I shake my head to dispel the memory and drop my instrument.

“We are alone,” I observe. “Well, well, isn’t that’s novel? No doctors, no nurses, no visitors, no other residents, no one with a hammer or a mop to pop in. I daresay this is the first time since, well, in a quite while that we’ve been alone, my dear Watson. How shall we celebrate?”

My voice quivers with bravado.

In truth, I am afraid. I want to run away from this precipice that is most certainly before me, want to scurry behind the dunes and escape this tide that surely is ripping the sand from beneath my feet.

But the man in the chair is not a coward.

And neither should be the man who stands before him.

I face you, meet your blank gaze, and say,

“I love you, John Watson. I love you with every fibre of my being. I want to be a better person for you. I am a better person because of you. I want to spend the rest of my days with you. This is my troth and I will declare it to everyone who walks through that door.” I gesture towards the front door with the tip of my bow. “Without reserve, though perhaps with carefully-worded statements that the close-minded can choose to interpret fraternally,” I add with a smirk.

Then I bow and say,

“I’m yours, my beloved, come Hell or Brighton or anywhere in-between.”

I right myself quickly and face the sea and take three steps forward until soft garden soil is beneath my feet.

“I shall play for you now as I played for you then, Watson, when you were Death’s captive,” I call, and with my heart unburden the memories come flooding back. “Let’s see, I believe there was a love song and then, perhaps, an evening ramble. A bit of London by the sea ought to do very well, yes? Do you remember? It went…”

I tuck the violin under my chin, take a deep breath, and lift the bow.

“I know how it went, Holmes. Heard every note. Remember them all.”

Later, I will be grateful for that soft garden soil for it catches, but does not bruise, the Stradivarius, but for the moment, all I can do is drop my lyre and cry,

“Watson!”

You smile a crooked smile.

“Holmes.”

Your voice is a rasp, but audible and so clearly yours that tears flow freely as I throw myself at you, falling to kneeling by your chair.

“Heard every note,” you repeat. “Love.”

My heart leaps as your voice grows stronger with each word, each breath.

You are crying, too. I wipe your tears with my sleeve.

“The challenge was not to overcome Death,” you say slowly, pronouncing each word with great care, “which is no challenge at all for a demi-god like the great Sherlock Holmes.”

“Please,” I admonish.

You pause and smile and seem to catch your breath.

I wait, for I know there is more.

I wait, for now I have all the time in the world.

I wait, will wait, for you until the end of my days.

You cough, then continue, “The challenge was to overcome Fear and Pride and Ego. The challenge was to love another more than yourself. The challenge was to love.”

You blink. I cover your hand with mine and squeeze it.

Your smile widens; it is the full, broad, warm Watson smile of old.

“And you’ve been aware of everything this whole time?” I ask.

You nod, then frown. I don’t quash the urge to reach up and smooth your brow with my hand. You purse your lips as if to kiss my fingers, palm. I let you, two kisses, as soft as lace. Then you say, with more ease, and more heat, I note,

“It’s been agony, being caged in this broken body, watching Mrs. Hudson suffer, watching you suffer in your own way, in that dream stupor, and being unable to do anything about it.”

You pause again. When you begin again, your words flow.

“I was there, Holmes, in the Baker Street rooms, day after day after day, as you went up and down the stairs and walked in circles, playing your violin, but I was also there in your fantasy, when you reached the Underworld following behind you, past Cerberus, up the long staircase lined with bones. I was there, everywhere, but could do nothing.”

“But it was you who broke through," I say, "when I reached the top of the staircase. I heard you say my name. I heard you cry ‘enough.’”

“I was angry, frustrated to the point of madness. I had to wake you. I meant, ‘Enough story. Enough myth. You’ve got to get one with it, my dear man.’ I feared that you, that I, that Mrs. Hudson, would be trapped forever, but I also feared I’d broken some rule and that either way, we’d be lost. I dared not speak again. Or try to.”

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, my dear man. That was the journey. But you did wake up. And you did figure it all out. And you have done so beautifully. It has not been easy. It’s been bloody difficult, I know, but day by day, you’ve forgot yourself and thrown yourself into this work. And finally, you overcome your fear and spoke your love aloud, and when you did, suddenly these pillars of salt that’ve held me prisoner began to melt, dissolve. The scales began to fall, not just from my eyes, but from my mind, my whole body.”

“Just like that?”

You nod your head slowly, disbelievingly. “Just like that.”

I sigh. “I love you, Watson.”

“I love you, too, Holmes. Every vow you made is mine.”

I lean up and press my lips to yours.

“God, that’s good,” you say when I break the kiss. “At the moment, I’m not as strong as I want to be, Holmes, but with time…”

There’s a twinkle in your eye.

“We’ve a seaside cottage to ourselves,” I say, grinning and wiggling my eyebrows.

“For now, play a song,” you say.

I stand and retrieve my violin, brushing off most of the garden dirt.

I’m well into the song of the Brazilian sailors when you shout,

“Look, Holmes! Three dark birds. Are they crows or ravens?”

I squint and shake my head. Then I turn towards you and nod at field glasses hanging by a strap on the corner of your chair.

You wince as you twist, but settle back in your chair with a grunt and bring the glasses to your eyes.

“What’s a group of vultures called, Holmes?”

I pause my song to reply,

“It depends. In flight, they’re a kettle. On the ground or in trees, they’re a committee. Whilst feeding, they’re a wake.”

“That’s a wake, Holmes, because that’s a corpse. Dear God, it’s a human corpse! A body, Holmes! Oh, don’t you even think of leaving me behind!”

“Not a chance,” I say, setting my violin down and rushing towards your chair. I release the brake and push hard, saying,

“Enough of lyre and song, my dear man. The game’s afoot!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
